New Books In Literature

A picaresque novel about a serious boy with special powers, The Lost Puzzler takes place in an impoverished, technologically backwards world. After the fall of the advanced Tarakan Empire, the remaining population struggles to get by on what remains of their technology. Others turn to a rural existence, adhering to religious dogma which condemns all those who still seek out technology.Children who spontaneously exhibit tattoos are linked to the fallen Tarakanian society, sought after by those who collect Tarakanian technology, and ostracized or killed by the religion rural faction.Two boys, born years apart, both possess the markings which indicate special powers. One, Rafik, flees death in his religiously conservative village only to be passed from hand to hand, as various factions try to make use of his powers. Rafik possesses one of the most useful mutations, the ability to open the locks that guard caches of the lost Tarkanian technology. Those locks are made of intricate puzzles that can only be solved b